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rfmcdonaldThe Globe and Mail's Colin Freeze reports on the somewhat ludicrous claim in this post's subject line.
What was this man, together with the rest of the Toronto 18, planning to do?
The group was also alleged to have planned to besiege Parliament Hill in Ottawa and decapitate Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Among other things.
No, Khalid wasn't a lunatic at all: he knew exactly what he was doing. He's lucky it's only ten years.
It was a scheme to bomb downtown Toronto that even a confessed conspirator now acknowledges as "a despicable crime."
Prosecutors say the ringleaders debated whether to plant metal chips in bombs to maximize the number of people injured - and spoke of their co-ordinated explosions dwarfing the impact of the 2005 London subway bombings that killed 50 commuters.
A penitent Saad Khalid yesterday asked a Superior Court judge for clemency during sentencing.
"I acknowledge that I made a huge mistake and not a day passes by that I am not filled with regret for my role in this despicable crime," Mr. Khalid told the court.
Having already pleaded guilty to involvement in the foiled bomb plot, he became the first person arrested to speak of the crime.
"I am not a lunatic who is hell bent on destruction of Western civilization," said the 22-year-old, who explained that he was a middle-class McMaster University student from a good home. His mistake, he said, arose from a "disagreement on the issue of Canadian foreign policy, specifically Canada's involvement in Afghanistan."
[. . .]
"I know now that resorting to violence is not the way to bring about social or political change," said Mr. Khalid, wearing a dark suit and sporting a short haircut.
He also told Mr. Justice Bruce Durno that he has a better understanding of Islam since being jailed.
On a day when five co-ordinated car bombs in Kandahar killed dozens of Afghan civilians, Mr. Khalid didn't say precisely what he was thinking when he helped unload boxes of fertilizer from the backs of trucks three years ago. That was on June 2, 2006, the day that police swept across the Toronto area to arrest 18 Muslim youths.
What was this man, together with the rest of the Toronto 18, planning to do?
They are alleged to have discussed targets for fertilizer-laden U-Haul vans rigged with cellphone detonators: The Toronto Stock Exchange, the Toronto headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and an unspecified military base along Highway 401.
The man accused of being the ringleader was allegedly spotted at public libraries in Mississauga with "a soldering iron, spools of wire and batteries," and searching on Google for terms such as "ammonium nitrate," "nitric acid" and "rocket fuel." While he is said to have given pagers and computer memory sticks to underlings to avoid police surveillance, the digital devices were intercepted.
It's alleged that the No. 2 bomb plotter was heard discussing the acquisition of chemicals, setting up delivery locations and the purchase of airline tickets to Pakistan.
The document says the two ringleaders said the plot would "screw Stephen Harper." Other times, they predicted the bombs would "result in Canadians not leaving their homes due to fear" and prompt Canada to withdraw troops from Afghanistan because "it is not tough like Britain or the United States."
The group was also alleged to have planned to besiege Parliament Hill in Ottawa and decapitate Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Among other things.
No, Khalid wasn't a lunatic at all: he knew exactly what he was doing. He's lucky it's only ten years.
